A/N: I don't have an explanation for how random this is except that we had a "just write" session in Creative Writing where he'd literally (not literally) smack your wrist with a ruler if he saw that your pencil stopped writing. Thankfully he didn't actually READ what we were writing, though, because it turned into…well…this.

Word Count:

Pairing(s): John/Sherlock

Warning(s): Absolutely rated M, people. Contains (albeit non-detailed) sexual content included but not limited to leisurely morning hand-jobs. Allusions to the original-time-period Sherlock Holmes adventures, bizarre dreams, and references to war. Talk of atheism, questioning fate, and allusions to reincarnation (or lack thereof.) Again… sexual content… for all of the READING of sexual-content fics I do, I'm really no good at writing it, guys.

Bridges

John tipped his head back. The sweat rolled off his forehead in heavy beads to pool at the nape of his neck; the heat still got to him after a good year and a half of being overseas. He was hardly off his game, though, and was not distracted for long from the spidery hands tracing patterns into his neck. John could feel the man's laughter muffled against his throat. It crossed John's mind that there was definitely something gross about having someone's face buried against your sweaty skin, especially seeming to enjoy it so, but it didn't really matter. The sweltering Afghanistan sun and the condition it's left him in is a small woe compared to the ache in his chest he feels just being in this man's presence.

Sherlock Holmes. An odd name for an odder man.

"You," Sherlock said and kissed the tender, sun burnt skin on John's shoulder. "I've been waiting for you, Doctor Watson. Have you been waiting for me?"

They've only met minutes ago, or maybe hours. It's gone by fast. So it's a question that leaves John thunderstruck, or at least, it should have. It was strange. Hell, everything about the man was strange. There John was, drenched and blistering in the heat of the desert even in his lightest gear and there was Sherlock, donned inexplicably in a thick coat and scarf and looking all the while completely composed. His complexion, despite having supposedly been stationed here as well, is perfectly pale and unblemished and he only sweat on him is John's. The apparent immunity to heat stroke accompanied with the tall, bony, alien features on the man should have had John running in the opposite direction at this point; especially considering John wasn't gay was he? Hell, John didn't' know what Sherlock was, never mind who.

But John wasn't fazed. In fact, he replied, "Yes. Always." He couldn't say why it felt the most honest.

Sherlock's mouth twisted into a feral grin. He gripped John's dog tags, rubbing the metal over his fingertips for a brief delicate moment before jerking John upwards. For a moment John is strangled, panicked, and very close to hitting him, but Sherlock's kisses are devastating and Sherlock had soon swallowed all of John's protests.

Perhaps John should have been worried about getting caught – his station wasn't that far off and it wouldn't be hard to find them if his presence was missed – but being frustrated and lonely in the desert isn't newsworthy anymore and John can't form coherent thoughts when Sherlock's leg is wedged between his, homosexuality or no homosexuality. Sherlock growled – actually growled – when John broke the kiss but was quickly rendered protest-free when John used the leverage to rip off Sherlock's scarf and set to work on his neck. It tastes like you'd expect it to – salty – and yet different, somehow unearthly and foreign. Sherlock hums appreciatively and slides his hands under John's shirt, thumbs brushing over his quickly hardening nipples; John's moan surprised John more than anybody and he buried his face into Sherlock's dress shirt. When John breathed him in he smelled like drying ink and London rain.

"I feel like the world is ending," John admitted as Sherlock yanked at the zipper on his trousers. When hand where his shirt had disappeared to was beyond John but it's absence did very little to subtract from the lovely, suppressive heat closing in on him, only emphasized by the added heat of arousal.

Sherlock's eyes danced. "Really? How often?"

John pressed his hands down on Sherlock's shoulders. "Every day," he said.

Sherlock dropped to his knees, kicking up desert dust on his fall and yanking John's trousers and pants down along with him in one fatal swoop. John looked down at Sherlock and Sherlock looked at John's exposed everything and John shuddered. Sherlock nodded, a serious expression crossing his features.

"That is an understandable feeling," Sherlock said. "But don't worry. If there is anything that will last forever, it will be this." He leaned in and gave him a soft kiss. Not on the lips. John's jaw goes slack but his voice has left him. "Wake up," Sherlock whispered.

John did.

In fact he very nearly fell straight out of bed, eyes wide with shock and donning an erection so hard it was actually painful. He very nearly did hit the floor, and would have, had there not been a pair of arms tangled around his waist. John smiled and leaned into the hold, relishing the breath against his ear.

Sherlock roused, yawning. "Afghanistan nightmare?"

"Nah. Well, sort of. Not a nightmare, anyway." Certain images fly into John's mind uninvited; he cursed his vivid imagination severely. John blushed and closed his eyes, trying to dispel the erection through sheer force of will. This might have even worked, had Sherlock not reached around to play with it. "Woah, not helpful, l-love," John managed, struggling with his own voice.

"Nonsense," said Sherlock. He snaked his hand into John's pants, sliding spindly fingers over his cock. John screwed his eyes shut, breath fleeing his lungs. It only took him a few casual, sleepy strokes and a clever slide of a thumb before John released a throaty noise and was finished. Later he'd feel like a horny teenager for coming so fast, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Sherlock chuckled and retracted his hand, swiping his tongue over the sticky substance now coating his fingers in a curiously carefree sort of way. "That certainly didn't take long. Must have been quite the dream."

"It was," John said, unabashed. "Can you guess who was in it?"

Sherlock hummed. "Zeta Jones?"

"Idjit."

John wiggled around until he was facing Sherlock, a drowsy smile gracing his lips. "Hey, you ever feel like…" John paused. Sentiment was very frequently lost on Sherlock and the detective sometimes simply wasn't in the mood to be hearing any of it, something John respected but was wary of. But Sherlock gazed at him with wide, fathomless curiosity, so John said, "Do you ever feel like we've just always known each other, somehow? Like, a hundred years ago we were together somehow? Just like this?"

Sherlock's expression twisted into a thoughtful frown. "I don't know if I ever thought of that before," he said. Then, with a playful edge, "I could see it, though. You'd write about our adventures on a typewriter and I'd... I'd smoke a pipe, or something. Not too much different, I imagine."

"You're a goof," John said. But even as he pressed the topic out between their foreheads the idea, however odd, resonated in his mind. He wasn't ever the religious type – he didn't believe in God or fate or destiny on any regular scale – but this was his Faith. The idea that Sherlock was somehow ingrained into his soul, a part of him even before they met, had even been born, felt too right, to resonant in his chest to simply ignore.

Sherlock sighed. "I wish I had known you. During my childhood or University, or that I'd joined the military with you instead of a drug pushing underground posse. We could have had a desert romance." Sherlock chuckled and pressed his nose to John's neck, breathing him in.

"Maybe we did," John mused. "Somewhere, in some dimension, maybe you have a set of dog tags, too. Or maybe I've got a drug problem and you're the one helping me. On some other path, you know?"

Sherlock smiled indulgently, turning the prospect over in his head, then shrugged a bit guiltily. "You know I don't believe in all of that. But I do believe in you, and in me, and in this moment right now. I believe that, considering all of the millions of random chance circumstances the universe throws at a man every day, I'm very lucky to be here with you. And for as long as I'm experiencing consciousness, I want to do it with the man that I love, and that's you." Sherlock met John's eyes, biting the inside of his cheek. "Is that enough?"

"More than enough," John said and he kissed Sherlock's neck with new fervor, tracing his teeth over Sherlock's Adam's apple. "Only you could make that sound romantic, but yes. That's just fine."

Sherlock released a happy kind of keening trill and reached up to squish his hands to John's cheeks. John gasped in giddy surprise; Sherlock rubbed their faces together like some sort of giant, amorous feline. John was content to rub right back despite the absolute silliness of the action save for the sticky hands squishing his cheeks.

"You should really wash your hands, love," John said, without much feeling.

Sherlock laughed and pressed a sloppy kiss between John's eyes. "Nah. I like it."

John quirked an eyebrow but his protests were quickly crushed between a pair of lips; Sherlock kissed him with the same odd contrast of familiar and foreign he always did and John clutched onto him like a life-raft, heat rushing to his head and drowning out all wayward thoughts of odd dreams and distant fate.

THIS WAS WEIRD… review anyway?